The announcement was made of the first two winners of the “Aviva Club of the Month” Award, a dynamic grass roots recognition scheme.
The Aviva Club of the Month Awards in conjunction with The Irish Daily Star and the Carlton Hotel, Blanchardstown recognise clubs' achievements and displays, on and off the field of play. The awards, which are now in their fifth year, will distinguish some of the finest football clubs in the country through a series of monthly prizes culminating in the Aviva Club of the Year Award.
The monthly winners are selected by a judging panel headed up by Donal Conway – chairman undeage committee and includes Eoin Brannigan - sports editor of The Star, Paul Martyn - FAI Community, Karl Mitchell - Dublin City Council, Mark Russell – Aviva and Kevin West– Carlton Hotels.
October winners, Enniskerry FC was formed in the early 1970’s and have grown to have as many as 50 volunteer coaches looking after 22 teams of both boys and girls between the ages of three and 16 years. Enniskerry host two huge annual events, Soccer in the Meadow and Belles in the Meadow which had more than 600 girls taking part last year.
Chairman Paul Kavanagh said that it’s a massive recognition of the quiet hard work put in over the years by the community of Enniskerry into creating a fun-filled, safe, dynamic football club for the girls and boys of our community; and it’s a great boost to all sport in the community of and is a recognition of the enormous amounts of grass roots hard work put in by volunteers and parents to make soccer fun for the 300+ children in our club.
November’s winners, Crosshaven AFC were formed in 1898 by the British army. They had various homes during the clubs long history, they came to "The Bog" in the 1980’s but are now based in Camden. With 13 teams catering for both girls and boys the club has a continuous conveyor belt of talent coming through for their adult men’s and women’s teams.
The Bog has developed into a state of the art facility with two grass pitches, an all weather pitch and club house but Crosshaven will not be resting on their laurels and have further plans to develop their grounds.
Seamus Murphy – Crosshaven AFC: “When we found out we won, we were shocked! Its was our first time entering the Club of the Month and looking back at the application now, its great to see what our club has achieved in the past four years and how far we have come. We have incredible support of our community and are looking forward to the Club of the Year awards at the FAI AGM this year.”
Crosshaven and Enniskerry were both been presented with their awards at a ceremony in Dublin and also a cheque to the value of €1,500 for continued development.
The Festival of Football and Annual General Meeting of the FAI will take place in Letterkenny in July of this year and both clubs will be invited to take part in the Aviva Club of the Year competition, the winner of which will be crowned the Aviva Club of the Year and will also receive a cheque for €5,000.
-ends-
Media enquiries:
David McHugh – Line UP Sports Media Entertainment
Email: dave@lineupsme.com
Telephone: +353 86 271 3321